


Shattered

by electroCoffee



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Nightmares, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PTSD, Panic Attacks, but keep in mind the warnings because those are for the whole fic, emma has a pocket knife, half infected!Paul, i just dont wanna spoil it, they end up in colorado for this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24225493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electroCoffee/pseuds/electroCoffee
Summary: After getting to Colorado, Paul and Emma try to lead normal lives - emphasis on normal - but there is just something off about Paul that has put tension between the two. Paul doesn't think much has changed, but for Emma, everything has changed about the life and people she once knew.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! First time posting any of my work on AO3 and first time writing anything that isnt fluff in years! 
> 
> Thanks to my discord for encouraging me to start writing darker things again, and especially to the one person in the server who gave this as an open prompt for anyone to take!
> 
> Oh and uh, not beta'd so sorry if anything reads a bit weird or something is typed wrong - this is my first time writing fic in about 5 years.

Emma was backed up against the wall, people coming at her from either side of the hospital’s hallway, coming into her line of sight. Smiles a bit too big, teeth stained pale blue from ... whatever was flowing in their systems. Eyes a bit too wide, not in excitement but as predators looking at their prey. That’s what she was, right? Their next sacrificial victim to join whatever fucked up thing this hivemind was. They were coming into vision singing, but she could not be bothered to react to them. All she could focus on was the hallway she just came from and what was in it: Paul, walking briskly towards her, same wide eyes as she had seen earlier but this time with what seemed to be no emotion, smile as wide as the others around her, but with a bit more goo oozing from his mouth as it closes and opens, singing with them - no, leading them - in this messed up chorus. 

They are surrounding her more closely now, forming barriers on either side of the opening to the hallway in front of her, leaving a straight shot for Paul to get in and take her. She already felt small, but them approaching on her made it unbearable. Sliding down the wall, Emma screaming, tucking her head down to her chest and curling up as small as she could get. It wasn’t much, but it was the least she could do. 

The music stopped and she looked up hesitantly. Were they faking this the whole time? Did they realize how fucked up of a joke this is? Opening her eyes, that very much is not what she saw. He was now standing above her, smile unwavering and head cocked. Those around them were mimicking him, looking towards the scene in front of them. She looked into his eyes: the clear blues that were normally there were teal, glowing with an inhuman aura. This was real, he was gone. He registered her stare, and somehow as his smile got wider, he saw this as his queue and yelled out “The apotheosis is upon us!”. The bystanders raised their voices to blend in with Emma’s screams, a set of arms pulling her arms away from her frame.

Paul threw her arms away, grabbing at the leg which was out more, her bad one, only recently allowed to put full weight on it. Pain shot out as he started pulling her leg out more, her other leg quickly immobilized as she tried kicking him to no avail, ankle firmly grasped by his other free hand. The crowds were no longer harmonizing to her, but humming along to previously known choruses, sometimes signing more openly than the hums could allow. She was yanked back into the hallway Paul had come from, scraping at the floor, begging for a loose tile somewhere on the pristine flooring. 

Once further in the hallway, he let go, knowing she wouldn't move or rather risk her leg failing on her again, the pain of her leg being yanked too much to bear. Looming over her again, he got down to her level, his smile lessened by only a fraction and eyebrows being the only thing showing Emma the slightest big affection. He grabbed one of her shoulders, pulling her to sit up with him still squatting by her side. “I think it’s time for that kiss now.” He put a hand up to her jaw and flinching away, she continued doing what she had been doing for the past 10 minutes. Emma closed her eyes, and screamed.

\-----

The scream continued as a strangled noise, Emma’s eyes flying open as she jolted up. She reached behind her, under her pillow. It was there, she knew it had to be. Between thrusting her arm underneath the pillow and taking deep breaths, Emma took glances over her shoulder. 

Paul normally doesn’t sleep. He normally just lays there, a presence in bed, mimicking sleep. That’s all he did anymore, mimicked being human when he really was just some sort of hybrid of human and alien in an unstable shell, ready to shatter at any point. He would he a presence around the house to talk to and interact with her during the day - after all, there wasn’t many people around for miles with how spread out the farms were in this part of Colorado - and at night, he just laid there with her, holding through the night sometimes as she needed it. 

Despite him, not needing to sleep, he looked like he was just awoken from a sleep of his own when Emma looked over at him. One eye was open, squinting into the darkness in her direction. He lifted his head slightly up from the pillow, still squinting heavily, and seeing Emma shuffling around manically, started getting up slowly to sit up and face her. Paul, very softly and mimicking the tiredness he should have, whispered into the dark: “Em? Are you doing al-”

Finally, she found the handle of what she was looking for and dragged it towards her, pushing it into the mattress for friction until she could grab the whole handle and flick the blade out, flinging herself off the bed, brandishing the pocket knife at him. Paul immediately dropped the tired bit, replacing it with worry as he realized what was going on, scrambling off his side of the bed. 

Emma gathered enough of her voice to vocalize, having some distance between them, but it came out as something between a grunt and a scream, making him back up slowly until his back hit the wall. Finally, a voice slightly higher than her normal voice came out, wavering as she screamed: “You’re not him! Give him back!”

“I...I am him, Emma. I don’t kn-” His hands were scrambling upwards and outwards, scanning the wall for the lip of the door molding before he remembered that it was closer to the corner of the room. Slowly but surely he scooted towards the door as Emma continued yelling at him.

“Yes you do! You left him back in Hatchetfield! You left him and took his body and are trying to be him! Give him back!” Emma was slowly kneeling on the mattress, still waving the knife in Paul’s direction. In the dim lighting from the window, the blade glinted and reflected into her eyes: dilated with fear, almost only pupils.

Paul’s fingers finally jammed on the molding, and breathing out a little bit - since when was he holding his breath? - he leaned just a bit more over to grab the door frame fully, adjusting his footing once more before trying to calmly respond to Emma. “Look, I am still me! I never went anywhere! How can I prove that to you! I’m still the Paul you know, I’m just a little...” He pondered his next words carefully, nodding satisfied when he quickly thought of a word. “...eccentric now! Changing a little does not make you a whole different person!”  
He was going to continue before the blade Emma was holding a few seconds ago sunk into the wall besides his upper arm four inches away. Paul instinctively pulled his arm away, turning himself towards the door and half stepping out of it before he heard Emma yell at him again, voice wavering worse than before. “You aren’t him! Go get him, don’t come back until you do!” He looked back once he was outside the door and in the hallway, seeing Emma sitting up and curled into a ball on the center of their bed, looking at him over her knees, hurt and betrayed. He looked on with a similar expression, closing the door as he backed out of the doorway.

So, this was another nightmare night, Paul determined as he heard the sobbing from the other side of the door before walking away. He walked quietly away from the door and down the hall, set on going to sit in the living room until the morning came. She would cry herself to sleep again and stay asleep until she woke up. Paul was never able to console her during these bouts - she always chased him out or screamed at him cryptically like he did tonight until he left on his own. She never remembered the nightmares in the morning, asking her what she meant when she yelled at him would lead nowhere.

Not that he had any leads to begin with. He knew he was a little different since the nightmare they lived through together, and that his personal recovery wasn’t fully complete, but that didn’t mean he was a totally different person..right? He still was the man who preferred to sit there and read with a random hodgepodge of disjointed notes stuck in his head that made no sense than see anything with any choral accompaniment- arguably even more so since that day. He’s been happier too, but who wouldn’t be happier when you are living with the one person you’ve been pining over for months who likes you back mutually?

He sat down a little forcefully onto the couch and looked at the digital clock on the cable box for the time: 3:21 in the morning. He sighed and hummed a sadder mix of notes, not quite a song, but not quite a frustrated grunt either. He unfocused from the clock, staring off at the wall in front of him as if the wall would be able to tell him something he didn’t know about what was going on. Paul tucked his legs besides him, leaning his face into his hand, propping everything up on the arm of the couch. This was gonna be a long night.


End file.
